View full sizeBenjamin Brink/The OregonianBruce Turnidge at trial Wednesday in Marion County Circuit Court. He faces aggravated murder charges along with his son, Joshua, in the Woodburn bank bombing case.

SALEM -- Bruce Turnidge was so fervent about protecting his right to have guns that he once sought to build and supply his own private militia, prosecutors said. His son, Joshua Turnidge, disdained police officers, calling them thieves and believing them all to be corrupt.

The two talked of bank robbery plots over the years no less than 50 times, a friend told prosecutors. The father had tried years before to raise money to arm a militia, but the men he approached turned him down, prosecutors said.

But it was Barack Obama's presidential win in November 2008 that finally drove the father and son to put one of their ideas into motion, Marion County Deputy District Attorney Katie Suver said Wednesday. They feared Obama's election would mean more gun restrictions, she said.

An employee at the Turnidges' biodiesel business recalled that Joshua Turnidge was "practically frantic" after the election about getting cash to reclaim his pawned guns as soon as he could, Suver said.

Then on Dec. 12, 2008, she said, the Turnidges planted a bomb outside the West Coast Bank in Woodburn. It ended up exploding inside the bank, killing two police officers, critically injuring a third and wounding a bank employee.

Benjamin Brink/The OregonianJoshua Turnidge listens to opening statements Wednesday in Marion County Circuit Court. He's accused with his father, Bruce Turnidge, in the deaths of two police officers killed when a bomb went off inside a Woodburn bank in December 2008.

The father, 58, and son, 33, are now on trial, each facing 18 counts of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and other charges. And while the two deny the state's theory, they also have turned on each other -- each maintaining his own innocence while implicating the other, according to their attorneys' opening remarks.

The defendants, both dressed in dark suits, appeared somber during the trial's first day as Suver outlined the prosecution's case in graphic detail.

The events of that cold Friday nearly two years ago began at 10:19 a.m. when a man with a calm, deep voice called Wells Fargo Bank, next door to West Coast Bank.

The man warned the employee who answered the phone and other workers to leave the bank and said he would also be calling the West Coast Bank. The employee, at her manager's direction, hung up -- apparently before a demand for money could be made, Suver said.

Police responded and found a disposable cell phone and five garbage bags left on a Dumpster outside of the bank. Officers also found a green metal box left under some bushes at West Coast Bank that the manager thought might belong to the landscaper, but they left it there.

Hours later, officers would return to check out the box. Oregon State Police Senior Trooper William Hakim, a bomb expert, X-rayed the box, but either the rain or something else affected the X-ray, Suver said. He believed the box was a hoax device -- Suver noted it had a false top that masked how lethal it was --and with the manager's permission, he took it into the West Coast Bank to dismantle it.

Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant and Woodburn Chief Scott Russell were with him. A detective took photos, including one showing Tennant with "a cheesy grin," Suver said, before the detective left to take another look around the area.

"It would be the last time in his life he would smile," Suver said.

Moments later, the bomb exploded. Other officers heard a boom. They ran into the bank, seeing "total devastation," she said. They found the bodies of Hakim and Tennant and realized they couldn't help them. They found Russell bleeding profusely from his legs and took off their belts to apply tourniquets. He would later lose his right leg.

Suver said the state will show how cell phone records, Wal-Mart surveillance video, license-plate information and interviews led investigators to zero in on the Turnidges, first arresting Joshua and then Bruce in the days after the blast.

The photos that the detective and Hakim himself took of the device also provided valuable clues about the components of the bomb, she said, adding that the state will plan to show that a passing trucker talking on a CB radio may have inadvertently sent the remote signal that caused the bomb to detonate -- not the officers' taking it apart.

"Trooper Hakim did not do anything to set off the bomb," she said.

The Turnidges showed their motivations even in unprompted conversations, she said, noting that Bruce Turnidge struck up a conversation with one of the FBI agents at his home during the initial investigation, including mentioning the origin of a racist slur against African Americans. Turnidge then told the agent, "Now we have one in the White House," the prosecutor said.

Defense attorneys for the father and son warned jurors that the state won't be able to back up its storyline with testimony or evidence.

"If you pay attention, you will find that some of the links of the chain of circumstantial evidence ... some of those links do not exist," said Steven Krasik, an attorney for Joshua Turnidge. "Some of those links are wishful thinking."

Krasik also said Joshua Turnidge is innocent. He said the son had long heard his father talk of schemes to rob banks using helicopters or explosives, but didn't take him seriously.

It wasn't until the morning after the bombing, when he saw his father and heard him mumble that "Nobody was supposed to get hurt" that he realized his father had finally gone through with an attempt, Krasik said.

"This time, one of Bruce's crazy plans happened," Krasik said. He added that Joshua, who had bought some items for his father and drove around with him on the day of the bombing, "feared his life was over because he knew he could be in trouble even though he had done nothing except listen to his dad."

But John Storkel, a defense lawyer for Bruce Turnidge, brushed aside Krasik's remarks, saying: "Joshua Turnidge is a liar," and noting that the son was the one linked to buying the two disposable cell phones linked to the failed bank robbery attempt and bombing.

"The evidence is going to show that Bruce Turnidge did not build an explosive device. The evidence is going to show that Bruce Turnidge did not place a bomb at the West Coast Bank. The evidence is going to show that Bruce Turnidge was not involved in this in any way," Storkel said.

Prosecutors are presenting an incomplete story of what happened, he said, taking statements or events out of context that witness testimony will clarify.

For example, he noted that prosecutors pointed to a sales receipt for a battery believed to be used in the bombing that had the name "Bruce" written on it. But that's not proof that the buyer was Bruce Turnidge, Storkel said. The clerk who handled the transaction also didn't recognize Bruce Turnidge's photo in a photo-identification test, he said.

"That's not the kind of evidence that goes to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt," Storkel said.

The joint trials in Marion County Circuit Court are expected to stretch into December. The Marion County district attorney's office plans to seek the death penalty if the Turnidges are convicted.